Altered states of consciousness induced by breathwork accompanied by music

I have done this since forever. Put music on and doing breathwork. Some of the most imaginative ideas I have ever had, start to be generated by themselves 15 minutes in the breathwork.

I use a technique no else uses, and at the start I was trying to emulate fighters being hit in the stomach. It had occured to me that fighters have generally more triangular upper bodies than other types of athletes. It turns out, that organs in the belly aggregate fat around them, and being hit in the stomach discombobulates the fat particles. I found a more intelligent way to emulate that, and less dangerous.

Altered state of consciousness start after 10-15 minutes of breathwork, when I put saliva on my scalp to clean the testosterone from the hair. That one was inspired by cats. The male scalp excretes lots of testosterone which cannot be removed with just shampoo. This also fixes androgenetic alopecia (it does not get reversed, but stops happening). I get seriously dizzy when I do that, that's why I have given up on all mind altering substances including alcohol. Getting dizzy from exercise is so much better.

There are 2-3 more exercises I do complementary to that. The breath work also is not breath work, it is something similar.

FWIW, I used to use a light and sound machine (Mindplace Procyon) and was able to induce these states with minimal effort. And I had a couple dozen experiences w/ psilocybin in my college years, so I'm well versed in what they should be like.

The goggles w/ binaural beats create some weird sort of state where I don't feel any connection to my environment. After only a couple minutes my body turns to total mush and my brain comes alive with phosphene visuals. By about 15 minutes in, my stomach usually gurgles a bit, not unlike the indigestion that often accompanies psychedelic trips.

Interestingly enough, these machines are marketed as brainwave entrainment, but the literature on that says the visual component doesn't really have much impact. Yet auditory entrainment on its own doesn't seem to do much for me either, or at least, not convincing enough beyond placebo.

There is an app for the iPhone called Lumenate that uses the LED flash and it seems to work, though it's not as strong for me as the multi-LED goggles I used to use. Still, it's a great gateway for those who are curious.

Personally I like to think of breathwork as another form of music, or rather that music and breathwork are all rhythmic stimulus with similar and complementary effects. Add dance to this as well. One of the big draws of EDM and trance and tribal music is the incessant rhythm of music and dance.

The altered states from uninhibited dance really seem to be underappreciated.

Along with rhythmic visuals and lights, and things like binaurals etc, the common trait is the rhythm.

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Here is the direct link for the breathing technique:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/asset?unique&id=inf...

The last time this topic was on HN, some mentioned that many indigenous people had similar techniques with drum beats, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIfLC5iudQ0 (this is a modern rendition though).

Asked Claude to read the paper and provide a playlist for me. Said it can't due to safety concerns. Guess I have to go eat some cheese.

This is not a surprise to anyone that has engaged in prolonged meditation, especially across more than one day. It makes shortcuts like psychedelics look foolish. During a ten day Vipassana retreat time slowed down to such a great extent it changed my entire perception of time thereafter. The space provided by the mental quiet created by Anapana is so profound.

TLDR Anapana: Sit comfortably and monitor the sensation of the breath exiting the nose and return to it as your thoughts wander. Don't get mad when you wander, it's part of the process. Just return and try to maintain equanimity, to not react. If you get frustrated at first, you can increase your exhale slighlty to make it more noticeable.

That's about all there is to it. After you do this for a while your thoughts become less and less frequent and... you only have important, creative thoughts :) It turns out conscious thought is just a refection of a deeper process and most of it is garbage: worries, self doubt, fears.

I have just inspired myself to take up daily Anapana by writing this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapanasati

Lewis-Williams theorized that paleolithic cave painters used drums and breathing techniques to enter ASOCs while making the paintings. I think that theory has taken some hits in recent years but it was always a neat mental image.

I have to wonder: are there undesirable side-effects of hyperventilating? Deliberately hyperventilating for 15 minutes or more in a time doesn't seem like a great idea.

The west takes a while to catch up to the east

So basically yogic pranayama